Richard Blumenthal: Cuts have ‘silver lining’

Sen. Richard Blumenthal said that there is a “silver lining” to the sequester — the automatic cuts to the federal budget implemented earlier this month — because the country is cutting spending.

“There is silver lining in the sequester,” Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said on CNN’s “Starting Point” on Monday. “We’re cutting spending which we need to do. The point is we need to do it responsibly — smart cuts, not across-the-board slashing arbitrary cuts. And we need to have a balance on the other side, too, which obviously sequester does not address.”

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He continued: “We need to raise revenue by closing those loopholes, ending the special tax breaks and subsidies, oil and gas, companies that send jobs overseas as well as the big agribusinesses. There is money there to be saved — and also cutting the cost of health care and improving that health care by eliminating, for example, hospital acquired diseases, other kinds of waste and fraud in the Medicare program, but not cutting the benefits.”

Blumenthal said that there is “common ground” between GOP and Democratic lawmakers.

“I keep coming back to the economy because we have to keep our eye on that ball: Job creation, economic growth — there is common ground,” he said.